A lawyer representing victims of a
Beijing-Olympics ticket scam warns that similar swindling will
occur in advance of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the
2012 Summer Games in London.

UK's Times Online: Fraudsters are planning to exploit the
public’s newfound enthusiasm for the Olympic Games in London
three years before tickets go on sale.

An American lawyer representing 144 victims of a fake ticketing
scam during the Beijing Games — the victims of which included the
parents of the double Olympic swimming champion Rebecca
Adlington, who paid £1,100 for tickets that never arrived — gave
warning that the syndicate behind the crime would repeat its
multimillion-pound swindle in 2012.

“I was shocked by the brilliance and hard work of the thieves
fleecing the Olympic family — and they are setting up to do the
same thing in Vancouver in 2010 and London in 2012,” Jim
Moriarty, a Houston-based corporate lawyer, said.

Indeed, such online scams have already begun.

Security experts have closed down sites illegally using Olympic
brands, including the 2012 logo, and are on constant watch for
new ones. About 25 known e-mail, postal and telephone stings have
been halted, including an unauthorised Olympic lottery, a fake
promotional draw using the names of a 2012 sponsor and senior
London officials, and a false grant scheme. However, advances in
technology are making it easier to bypass online security.

Mr Moriarty, who was himself conned by the bogus site that looked
so professional it fooled the experts, hopes to secure criminal
prosecutions by posting the results of his own investigations on
his website, beijingticketscam.com. His list of the 250 web
domain names bought by Xclusive includes four related to the
winter Games in Vancouver and one — london-tickets.net — that
could be used for the 2012 Olympics.

In other news, the Times reports that the London Games
plans to partner with Ticketmaster, which means even legal-ticket
buyers will get taken to the cleaners.